Identity, Language and Collaboration in Indigenous Music

Edith Cowan University Research Online ECU Publications Post 2013 2019 Identity, language and collaboration in Indigenous music Clint Bracknell Edith Cowan University Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworkspost2013 Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Bracknell, C. (2019). Identity, language and collaboration in Indigenous music. In L. Bamblett, F. Myers & T. Rowse (Eds.), The difference identity makes: Indigenous cultural capital in Australian cultural fields (pp. 99-123). Canberra, ACT: Aboriginal Studies Press. Available here This Book Chapter is posted at Research Online. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworkspost2013/6643 IDENTITY, LANGUAGE AND COLLABORATION IN INDIGENOUS MUSIC Clint Bracknell Introduction: What is ‘Indigenous Australian music’? I begin this chapter by arguing against any sort of prescriptive defnitions for Indigenous Australian music. I will then illustrate change in public discourse on Indigenous music by examining the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) awards for Best Indigenous Release (1987–1998) and for Best World Music Album (1999–2016). Te chapter then proceeds to highlight two increasingly common features of the work of Indigenous musical artists: reference to one’s specifc Indigenous cultural identity (e.g. Noongar, Bundjalung, Yorta Yorta) in popular music performance, and writing and performing popular music in Indigenous languages. Te chapter concludes by illustrating how frequently Indigenous artists collaborate with non-Indigenous artists in the production and performance of popular music. Tese practices serve as examples of Indigenous agency: position-taking within the cultural feld of popular music. ‘Indigenous music’ is not a musical genre Te Australia Council for the Arts’ Protocols for Producing Indigenous Australian Music refers to Indigenous music as being I NDIGENOUS MUSIC ‘created primarily by Indigenous Australian people, or based on the cultural property of Indigenous Australian people’ (Quiggin 2007, p. 4). Expanding on this statement, it seems Indigenous music may be distinguished according to both: • Its inclusion of musical or lyrical content derived from Indigenous people, and • Te Indigenous status of the artists involved in its production. I use the term ‘artist’ to refer to singers and musicians who write (or co-write), record and perform original music – and the term ‘Indigenous artist’ to refer to those artists who are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people as defned by the Australian government’s current working defnition: An Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander is a person of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent who identifes as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and is accepted as such by the community in which he [or she] lives (Department of Aboriginal Afairs, 1981, p. 8). Te binary construction of Indigenous/non-Indigenous is a key feature of institutional and media discourse in Australia, and it remains pertinent because the ongoing experience of colonisation remains an undeniable common thread linking the hundreds of linguistically and culturally diverse Indigenous peoples of Australia. Te colonisation of Australia and ensuing government policies of assimilation continue to endanger pre-colonial Aboriginal singing practices, with approximately 98 per cent of these musical traditions presently considered lost (Corn 2012, p. 240). According to Castles, some Aboriginal musicians at the University of Adelaide’s Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music (CASM) in the 1970s were ‘brought up to despise tribal music or anything it implied, to distance themselves 101 THE DIFFERENCE IDENTITY MAKES from the past and move into the assimilated future’ (Castles 1992, p. 29). More recently, communities and music researchers have worked together to support the revitalisation and maintenance of local musical idioms ofen strongly tied to endangered Aboriginal languages (Bracknell 2015; Bendrups, Barney & Grant 2013; Walsh 2007). Nonetheless, ‘Indigenous Australian music’ is not a genre. Either alongside or in the absence of older musical traditions, many Indigenous musicians have adapted popular music genres such as folk, country and rock to suit their own agenda (Stubington 2007). Country music has been popular in Aboriginal communities across Australia since it frst arrived via the touring shows of the 1930s (Smith & Brett 1998) and Aboriginal performers Richard Walley, Ernie Dingo and Joe Geia have said that Aboriginal people ‘feel closer to cowboys than they do to city people’ (Kartomi 1988, p. 21). Many of the songs written by Indigenous people in the early 20th century, collected by Indigenous artist Jessie Lloyd for the Mission Songs Project, draw heavily on country music conventions (Lloyd 2017). Walker proposes that country music’s focus on storytelling, its portability by virtue of its instrumentation and the somewhat intangible sense of loss permeating much of the genre – perhaps arising from its steady rhythms and crying vocal and instrumental timbres – are key to its continued popularity amongst Aboriginal people (Walker 2000, p.14). Indigenous country artists like Jimmy Little, Col Hardy and Auriel Andrew also became popular with non- Indigenous audiences in the 1960s and 1970s and various writers identify the signature guitar-heavy sound of country music as one of the most common stylistic elements found in Aboriginal popular music (Breen 1989; Castles 1992; Dunbar-Hall & Gibson & 2000). Still, Indigenous popular music performance in Australia is constantly changing (Dunbar-Hall & Gibson, 2004), and it is ofen studied in a context of cultural resistance and survival. Stubington and Dunbar-Hall examine the global success of Yothu Yindi, a cross-cultural rock group from the Northern Territory (Stubington & Dunbar-Hall 1994); Barney and Solomon explore resilience in 102 I NDIGENOUS MUSIC the songs of female Indigenous popular music singers (Barney & Solomon 2011); and Minestrelli investigates the politics and culture of Indigenous hip hop (Minestrelli, 2017). Popular music provides artists with a wide range of options for creative expression, but as Straw explains: While it is apparent that a global pop music culture now exists as a repertory of resources for any given musician, the criteria by which those resources are deemed appropriate to a given conjuncture are nevertheless worked out in an ongoing and complex elaboration and redefnition of values. (Straw 1991, p. 250). Indigenous artists participating in the cultural feld of popular music consistently make creative decisions based on particular experiences, aims and values – no doubt impacted to some degree by their Indigeneity. Connolly and Krueger include ‘rock and roll, pop, rap, bebop, jazz, blues and many other genres’ – such as fnancially viable classical music – in their defnition of popular music (Connolly & Krueger 2006, p. 669). As Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists frequently make music within the established conventions of these ubiquitous music styles, it is counterintuitive to cast ‘Indigenous music’ as a separate genre. For example, the music of Indigenous hip hop artist Adam Briggs has more in common with seminal USA hip hop artist Ice Cube’s work than the songs of Indigenous country star Troy Cassar-Daley. At the same time, while Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islands music practices originating prior to the infuence of popular music could be grouped under the umbrella of ‘Indigenous music’, it is reductive and misleading to lump together the broad and diverse range of regionally distinctive Aboriginal vocal music styles – some featuring percussion and, far more rarely, the didgeridoo – and music of the Torres Straits, which is more closely related to Melanesian music. 103 THE DIFFERENCE IDENTITY MAKES While Indigenous Australian music is not a genre, most non- Indigenous audiences would expect musical elements such as descending melodies in an inscrutable language, clap sticks and didgeridoo – an instrument originating only in the north of the continent (Moyle 1981) – to be on the sonic menu when they encounter an Indigenous artist. As Vellutini notes: Te didgeridoo is so widely recognised as a symbol of Aboriginal music that it has become metonymic and its use tends to elide the fact that Indigenous people may play other instruments, depending on the region of their birth and on the social occasion of their performance. (Vellutini 2003, p. 132) Te tag of ‘Indigenous music’ is reliant on outsider-perceived notions of authenticity and also pigeonholes Indigenous artists as exotic. Indigenous singer/songwriter Archie Roach explains: People always talk about me as an Aboriginal singer/ songwriter. I say well, ‘I’m a singer/songwriter who just happens to be Aboriginal’. You know? Sure I write about the experience of the frst nations’ experience, frst peoples’ experience, but you know, like any songwriter I just want to write a good song and hope somebody likes it. Write a deadly song and make a lot of money! No! [Laughs]. (In Roach & Pilkington 2016) While acknowledging that his experience as an Indigenous person informs his song writing, Roach clearly wants a broad audience to enjoy his music on its own terms. Furthermore, Russel Guy, the manager of Indigenous rock act Coloured Stone has expressed concerns that journalism focusing specifcally on Aboriginal music serves to ‘ghettoise’ Indigenous artists (quoted in Castles 1992, p. 33). Still, soul and country singer Emma Donovan is staunch in afrming her status as an Indigenous artist: 104

Load more